Brainerd International Raceway To Welcome Back Spectators For Free Event

After two months of denying spectators because of coronavirus restrictions, Brainerd International Raceway has announced they are set to welcome fans to watch professional road racing July 11th and 12th.

BIR is inviting fans back for its Fan Appreciation Weekend, a free drive-in-style event that will feature the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli and the Sports Car Club of America.

“We’re really excited about the weekend because it’s hard to watch road racing on a 2.5-mile road course,” BIR owner Kristi Copham said. “But watching with the help of this app is really going to be a game changer. Fans can watch all the action on every section of track, which will keep everyone involved in the race.”

The weekend finale is a pair of 100-mile, 40-lap races on Sunday, one of which is the Jed Copham Memorial Race, sponsored by Ryan Companies. Copham is the late BIR owner who died tragically in a swimming accident in November 2018.

BIR has been hosting spectator-free races for the past month, following the pandemic restrictions and guidelines by limiting the number of racers and using the track’s expansive grounds to maintain social distancing between the teams.

For the Fan Appreciation Weekend, BIR is taking a drive-in-style approach to celebrating its long history of road racing by encouraging fans to drive up next to the safety fence and watch from their cars, and not from the bleachers.

The road course is 2.5 miles long, which gives fans many vantage points to watch from, and they can freely move around the track to try different vantage points during the race.